Updates to Intuit Assist - From Intuit's 'In the Know' (Our Take)

Intuit claims to have been tuning into their customers' woes, particularly those grappling with the cumbersome task of managing accounts payable. Users have long been exasperated with the tedious manual entry of bills, a process that demands painstakingly typing each one into the system. Yes, QuickBooks did offer a receipt capture feature, but let's be honest—it was missing key functionalities and often failed to populate the necessary fields accurately.

Then there's the issue of email forwarding. Previously, users couldn't share emails directly with vendors or employees unless they had QuickBooks access. This seemed like a glaring oversight, creating unnecessary hurdles in an already complex workflow.

In response, Intuit has rolled out what they describe as significant updates to QuickBooks Online, particularly with the Intuit Assist AI feature. But are these enhancements as groundbreaking as they sound? Let's break it down:

1. Autofill for Bills and Expenses: Intuit has introduced an autofill feature for bill and expense forms. The idea is that when a user drags a bill into QuickBooks, Intuit Assist AI will automatically extract and populate the necessary information. This includes the vendor's name, mailing address, terms, dates, and even the expense category. While this sounds promising, one can't help but wonder if it truly eliminates the need for manual entry or if there are still hiccups along the way.

2. Enhanced Email Sharing: The email forwarding feature has been updated to allow sharing with anyone outside of QuickBooks. Users can now forward receipts and bills to vendors and employees without requiring them to have QuickBooks access. While this is a welcome change, it begs the question—why wasn't this capability available from the start?

3. Demo of New Features: In a recent demonstration, Intuit showcased the new autofill functionality. Users can now drag a bill received via email into QuickBooks, and Intuit Assist AI will fill in all relevant fields. Sure, this sounds efficient, but how reliable is this feature in real-world usage? Only time will tell if it lives up to the hype.

4. Expansion to Invoices: Intuit plans to extend the autofill feature to invoices, allowing users to quickly create invoices for clients. While this expansion seems logical, it's worth questioning whether this will genuinely speed up the invoicing process or if unforeseen issues will arise.

These updates are supposedly designed to alleviate the pain points experienced by users, making the accounts payable process more seamless. However, it's crucial for users to approach these changes with a healthy dose of skepticism and keep an eye on how these features perform in practice. After all, the true test of these enhancements will be their effectiveness in real-world scenarios, not just in a controlled demo environment. One thing that we see missing is the data extraction for a multiple line item bill doesn't seem to split the line items on the QuickBooks transaction. It's a start, we suppose.